The overarching premise to remember is:

Is this research worth doing? Will it have an impact?

If your answer is yes, then proceed with research.

If your answer is no, then do not proceed with research.

If your answer is "not sure", then you need to hold a kickoff meeting to understand the research request/ask more in-depth. Make sure the research will be actioned upon BEFORE you do the research!!! Ask the pre-mortem questions!

So here are times where you should say no to research:

1. When the team doesn't know what they want / objectives unclear
2. When there is enough body of work / secondary literature to make an informed decision
3. When the team is not going to take action on your research (i.e. they already plan to go live and are using research as a validation step).
4. Unrealistic timelines for research delivery, and more importantly, time for impact to occur.
   1. Lots of expectation-setting must be done to educate stakeholders on what research can and cannot do and when.
5. If you're going to be doing the research by yourself (if you're not getting buy-in, then there will be no impact; make sure research will have impact before you do it)